Bringing scientific literature to the developing world: The Essential Electronic Agricultural Library (TEEAL)

The Essential Electronic Agricultural Library (TEEAL) is an indexed library of key agricultural, environmental and related science periodicals created to help institutions in developing countries significantly expand their journal collections despite the prohibitive cost of journal subscriptions. TEEAL currently contains nine years of subscriptions (1993‐2001) to over 140 scientific journals with 1.7 million pages of articles on 381 CD‐ROMs. TEEAL is distributed at a low cost to 109 low and lower‐middle income countries around the world. Today, 66 institutions in 34 countries use TEEAL, and many others are negotiating its acquisition. This paper discusses the creation and development of TEEAL and its future direction in the context of working towards universal access to scientific information.